GAGGENAU’s origins become a gastronomical experience. CAESARSTONE produces an experimental cookbook. BOFFI customizes kitchens with the Piero Lissoni touch. Discover what’s driving the business of design.

Kitchens

The Real ThingHelmut Smits A device by multidisciplinary artist Helmut Smits, The Real Thing turns Coca-Cola into clean drinking water. Smits’ research revealed that 1 litre of the soft drink requires up to 9 litres of H2O to produce – a fact he describes as ‘absurd’. Noting Coca-Cola’s resemblance to dirty brown water, the artist set out to produce clean water by filtering the beverage as if it were waste water. He added minerals at the end of the process to ensure potability. In a world in which soda pop is often easier to come by than safe tap water, Smits hopes his installation will prompt reflection on how humans impact the environment.helmutsmits.nl

DIY Digestibles

How will we make, bake and eat food in the future? And how will the heart of the home have to adapt? At IMM LIVINGKITCHEN, Dutch designers off ered their perspectives during the FRAME-CURATED KITCHENLAB. Words

MICHAELA CAVANAGH AND TRACEY INGRAM

The start of another calendar year incites a wave of trend predictions. While social-media feeds were filled with food forecasts for 2017 – think Syrian cuisine, turmeric (yet again) and koji, a Japanese ferment – Frame was presenting KitchenLab, a forward-looking exhibition that scrutinized the subject from a design perspective. Part of biennial event IMM LivingKitchen in Cologne, Germany, the inaugural KitchenLab explored the production, processing and consumption of food through the eyes of 14 Dutch creatives. Hand-picked by Frame, participants off ered their perspectives on how a kitchen could look if and when food becomes a self-suffi cient aff air – something even city-dwellers can anticipate.

Something Sweet Tessa GeuzeTessa Geuze wants to challenge our modern relationship with candy by harking back to the golden days of sweets. In line with Geuze’s overarching interrogation of user-product engagement, her miniature confec-tionary kit urges people to go outside and find fresh ingredients for making their own seasonal sweets. The designer seeks to sal-vage the artisanal method of producing candy – and the lost art of enjoying it as a luxury.tessageuze.nl

House Wine Sabine MarcelisWe tend to revere the end product of wine-making without giving much thought to the process behind it. In a residential situation, the task is often relegated to garages or cellars. With House Wine, Sabine Marcelis (see page 67) provides us with an all-in-one home-brew installation that brings wine-making into the living space, together with a sense of nurture and calm. sabinemarcelis.com

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Infinity Kitchen MVRDV MVRDV’s Infinity Kitchen aims to improve cuisine by making the processes that occur within it quite literally transparent. Originally launched at the Venice Biennale, the project addresses everything from the foods we choose to how much we have hidden away – and, perhaps more important in this day and age, it examines the amount of waste we’re creating. mvrdv.nl

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Contatto Giulia SoldatiTaste and touch are inextricably intertwined, forming a bond that Giulia Soldati plays with in Contatto. Taking a fresh approach to the mate-riality of food – its preparation and consumption – Contatto removes unnecessary components in the rela-tionship between people and food. When the human hand is a surface for edibles, the act of serving becomes an intimate gesture between toucher and taster. giuliasoldati.com

Ginly Roald SooijsHailing from a family of home brewers, Roald Sooijs shifts from beer to spirits with Ginly. The designer’s botanical vapour infuser allows users to distil spirits like gin without obtaining a professional permit. The infuser enriches any spirit with flavours from herbs, fruit or vegetables. roaldsooijs.nl

Lemonade Factory Renske RothuizenInspired by the classic tales of Pippi Longstocking, Renske Rothuizen’s Lemonade Factory embraces the whimsy associ-ated with making lemonade in a practical yet aesthetic manner. Although it looks more suited to a science lab, the device can be used at home to transform fruit into a palatable beverage.renskerothuizen.com

Everyday Growing Juliette WarmenhovenJuliette Warmenhoven grew up in the so-called ‘bulb district’ of the Netherlands, where her father was a flower farmer. The industrialization of tulip production in her homeland lies at the heart of her project: a series of small botanical monu-ments that pay tribute to the humble and imperfect beginnings of plants. Everyday Growing features minia-ture plants in strange and interest-ing vessels, all handmade by War-menhoven. The designer explores the tension between the natural and the artificial by dissecting both. juliettewarmenhoven.nl

How is Yoghurt Clock relevant to the food industry? DIGNA KLOSSE: The project is a thinking model for analysing the yoghurt-making process. We dissected the method into smaller steps, which led to the discovery of other potential products along the way. Our model shows how a yoghurt factory could also be connected to the manufacture of cos-metics and sports-nutrition supplements, or even to a cooking lab.

What personal interests led to the conception of the Yoghurt Clock? We have always been fascinated by diff erences between artisanal and industrial food production. Both have their benefits. We are explor-ing ways to combine these two seemingly opposing production methods.

What do you think tomorrow’s kitchen will look like? The future kitchen will have smart connections. It will be high-tech to a degree, but will also uses smart solutions that have been around for decades, or even centuries. Time will be used as a method of preparation, for example through fermentation. The future kitchen will rearrange most of the work that goes into cooking tasty dishes. People won’t have to spend as much time cooking but will still be able to enjoy their own personally prepared meals. – LG foodcurators.nl

TicktockFusing the roles of chef

and designer, Digna Kosse and Lucas Mullié

of Foodcurators are reviewing the culinary cycle. Kosse discusses

the duo’s spin on yoghurt fermentation.

By dissecting the yoghurt-making process to form the segments of a 24-hour clock, Foodcurators reveals other outcomes along the way.

Cheese Maker Studio Makkink & BeyStudio Makkink & Bey merges design, education and craft from the Netherlands and India in Cheese Maker. The project comprises a stack of objects for making cheese at home: milk jug, spoon, cheesecloth and colander in various materials such as wood and ceramic. Similarities in the cheese-making traditions of both countries, along with the history of ceramic craftsmanship, led the studio to build on themes of knowledge transfer and education.studiomakkinkbey.nl

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Waste Not, Want NotChloé Rutzerveld merges new technologies

and natural plant-growing practices. Strooop! is the designer’s new project, which

deals with food waste. She tells us more.

Farming Food Processor Naomi BijlefeldRecalling her childhood experiences with kitchen gardens, Naomi Bijlefeld designed a hand-operated processor that removes soil, unwanted leaves and peels from fruit and vegetables before chopping them into pieces. Bijlefeld’s DIY processor prepares the urban gardener’s harvest for immediate use in the kitchen or storage in the freezer. naomibijlefeld.com

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Me Emma van Eijkeren and Moak Studio Focusing on portability and flexibility, Dutch designer Emma van Eijkeren and Colombian studio Moak made Me, a set of kitchen equipment that fits neatly into a holdall. Developed during an exchange programme between the two coun-tries, Me is the team’s idea of a versatile product for uniting families and friends and encouraging shared meals. Me is a compartmentalized unit containing vari-ous implements. Each compartment plays a diff erent role, opening up diverse inter-pretations for use. Foods can be roasted in the clay bowl, for instance, while the wooden lid doubles as a chopping board.emmavaneijkeren.squarespace.commoakstudio.com

Strooop! is your take on the sweet Dutch biscuit for which it was named. What ingredients does it contain and where do you get them? CHLOÉ RUTZERVELD: I use 100 g of carrots for each waffl e. It’s about turning carrots and beetroots into something else – to show what’s possible with vegeta-bles. The project also addresses food waste and sustainability, as I’m using a by-product of the vegetable industry. I’m supplied with the raw material, including the upper and lower parts, and some of the peel. I also

receive third-class carrots, which I turn into juice; what’s left behind after juicing is pure fibre. I make a syrup by boiling the juice and reducing it. You can see how much natural sugar is in the root vegetable. I turn the fibre into dough, using as few additives as possible. The plant-based result contains no added sugar and is gluten-free.

How do you envision the kitchen of the future? I hope to see the smart use of technology, such as programmed DIY plant breeding. Every crop needs a diff erent combi-nation of light to let it blossom or grow in the best way possible. With LED lighting, you can change the density or growth of plants. In the future, I’d love to see vertical breeding cells in the kitchen. Depending on climate and light control, you can steer the crop you want to grow with just one seed. – LG chloerutzerveld.com

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What’s Cooking?Contemporary KITCHEN BRANDS explore bold new flavours.Words JANE SZITA

The rise of celebrity chefs and cult cookery proves that food is both entertainment and nourishment, while preparing it is nothing less than a performance. Embracing the trend are designers and manufacturers eager to create physical environments that combine food with fun and fantasy, and to fill kitchens with products that add photogenic qualities to functionality. In the fun-and-fantasy category, we find pop-up restaurants, showrooms, training facilities, brainstorm spaces and cookbooks – physical manifestations of brand values linked to product experiences and special features. Kitchens in the second category display a modernist palette, minimalism and the Japanese aesthetic – indications of the growing role of the kitchen as the heart of the contemporary household. No longer an afterthought, the kitchen is where many of us spend most of our waking hours at home. Now on show rather than concealed from our guests, it’s often the place where we do our entertaining and reveal our individual aspirations. All of which explains why the current crop of kitchen innovations are as much about expressiveness as about effi ciency.

Serenely SimpleMinimalist maestro Piero Lissoni (see p. 60) continues his customizable kitchen designs for Boffi , first launched in Milan in 2016. Among the lat-est additions are sleek units in slate, Corian, Paperstone, oak or walnut. Designed for installation above a kitchen counter, the units have shelves or open-faced compartments for storing accessories; an LED strip pro-vides illumination. Another new Lissoni design for Boffi – boasting the same clean lines – is a stainless-steel open hood with duct system and LED lighting. Both products illustrate the serene simplicity that is the Italian architect’s hallmark.boffi .com

New EraGerman kitchen company Eggersmann recently unveiled a new space designed by minimalist architects BKS. A complex composed of showrooms and a training centre in the company’s hometown of Hiddenhausen, the new building marks a milestone in Eggersmann’s 108-year history.eggersmann.com

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In an attempt to integrate food culture into the workplace, German designer May Kukula created Oikos, a mobile wagon with a tabletop that can be used for both offi ce work and cooking. During lunch, Oikos functions as a central meeting point and stimulates communal activity. After lunch, the integrated induction stove can be covered and laptops plugged into the wagon’s electrical sockets. maykukula.de

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Le Corbu’s ColoursLeicht’s latest innovation is a series of kitchens in time-less colours by Le Corbusier. The Les Couleurs range is available in matte and high-gloss lacquer finishes in schemes of blue, white and grey, green, umber, and red ochre and brown. The French-Swiss architect origi-nally formulated his Archi-tectural Polychromy system in 1931 and added another 20 hues in 1959. Leicht has the exclusive rights to use these colours in its kitchens.leicht.com

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Look, No HandlesThe merger of the kitchen with the living room makes streamlined design more important than ever – hence Miele’s handle-free series of built-in appliances. The ArtLine collection blends in seamlessly with flush furniture fronts and is available in graphite grey, brilliant white and obsidian black. The range includes ovens and combination steam ovens (for 45 cm and 60 cm recesses), as well as steam ovens with microwave. Joining these key products are a coff ee machine, hob units, warming and heat-sealing drawers, a wine-conditioning unit and various refrigeration products – all easy to combine with dishwashers from the current Miele range and all with handle-free Knock2open technology. miele.com

Gaggenau cooked up a mix of fun, fantasy and food at its adventurous pop-up restau-rant in September. After literally centuries in the business, the company wanted to do something special for its 333rd anniversary. Enter design studio Einszu33, whose lively interpretation of the kitchen brand – Res-taurant 1683 – became a four-night pop-up eatery at the ArtBeam gallery in Manhattan. Under the direction of chef Daniel Humm, recipient of three Michelin stars, the menu

relied on cutting-edge cooking techniques made famous by Gaggenau. The event also reflected two current trends: communal eating and dining as entertainment. Guests were transported to the Black Forest (reflect-ing Gaggenau’s origins) with the help of real trees, a ceiling-to-floor waterfall and a huge cuckoo clock. The evening began with cock-tails, while a real blacksmith forged nails as a playful reference to Gaggenau’s oven EB 333.gaggenau.com

Designed by Dieter Stierli for Girsberger, Essentials is a product line based on Stierli’s passion for cooking. Made from oak and walnut, items in the series facilitate the preparation, service and presentation of food. A tray fits onto the top of the wheeled trolley, which is easy to fold for storage when not in use. girsberger.com

Landmark Pop-Up

Perene’s Eff et d’Apesanteur (Weightless Eff ect) kitchen plays with the idea of a space unconstrained by gravity. Aided by the near-invisibility of a reflective base, the island appears to be floating in midair, while little open-faced cabinets make for a light and playful composition. perene.fr

The Stone AgeInspired by Donald Judd’s art installation, Minimal Myth, Rock is a kitchen ‘archipelago’ consisting of four individual blocks, executed in stone. The units are made entirely from 6-mm-thin stone panels mounted on aluminium frames. Corners have a 45-degree bevelled edge. Designed by Martin Steininger and Alberto Minotti for Steininger Designers, Rock can be used as a bold island solution or as an unusual stand-alone composition of blocks placed close to or next to one another. steininger-designers.atRo

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Family UnitThe increasing fluidity of once separate zones in the home prompted Poggenpohl to come up with +Stage, a versatile series of storage units that are equally at home in kitchen, dining or living environments – or in a combination of the three. Clean lines, neutral colours and natural finishes make +Stage easy to adapt to individual needs.poggenpohl.com

One of the first fitted kitchens was the Frankfurt Kitchen,

designed in 1926 by Margarete Schütte-Lihotzky for Ernst May’s

social-housing project, New Frankfurt

Materials on the MenuBrands are turning to ever-more adventurous ways of showcasing their kitchen credentials. Maker of quartz surfaces Caesarstone joined forces with experimental food and design studio Arabeschi di Latte to produce an edgy cook-book: A Material Menu: Designs for the Culinary Aesthetic. Comprising eight conceptual recipes and food-related tales based on the elements of earth, air, wind and fire, the book features stun-ning photography by Tom Mannion. Unusual dishes – are you ready for a stone sandwich with salty lemonade and icefish fritters? – are set against the lush yet austere backdrop of Caesarstone’s quartz countertops.caesarstone.com

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side indoor container gardens. Farmhouse-style sinks are also on the rise. The sink is a great way to make a statement – an inter-esting focal point – where there used to be none.

What developments in lifestyle are your products responding to? People are spend-ing an increasing amount of time in the kitchen, which is being viewed more and more as a living space. As such, the kitchen needs to be both comfortable and functional.

Which other directions are you picking up on? The colour grey is continuing to take the place of the more traditional white and black. Our honed basalt and Carrara materials are great go-to choices that give kitchens a custom feel.

Are you pursuing any future indications pertaining to kitchens? We want to keep creating unique sculptural pieces, to utilize our customization skills and homeowner-driven ideas, and to add the unexpected to our product line.

How do you see the kitchen of the future? More effi cient and more centred on technol-ogy, but also more livable. I’m expecting to see softer elements incorporated into future kitchen design – of the kind now normally found in living or seating areas.stoneforest.com

How are your customers’ expectations changing? MICHAEL CAHILL: These days, the customer is looking for a functional piece of art when buying a new kitchen sink. We see our products as handcrafted pieces of functional sculpture.

Literally handcrafted? Yes. All our products are either hand-carved from solid blocks of stone or hand-pressed and hammered from large sheets of thick-gauge copper. After using hand machinery, we finish each piece manually – whether it’s polished, honed, chiselled or hammered.

You specialize in high-impact sinks. What trends are you noticing in this area right now? Natural materials are big in the kitchen, and we think this trend will continue for some time. Granite is used quite often, as are natural woods and raw metals, often along-

Everything and the Sink

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The days of pure functionality are gone. The new kitchen sink is both focal point and artistic statement,

says Michael Cahill, director of Stone Forest.

Let It FlowA highlight of Bulthaup’s Campus system is the offi ce water cooler, a mundane object that the German company sees as a focal point of communication and innovation, a way of reinventing the corporate offi ce as a silo-free, nonhierarchical force for the 21st century. The water point – a bar counter with seating – attracts people and invites them to pour a glass of H2O and add various natural flavourings if desired. The configuration encourages them to linger and interact. Other Campus spaces off er possibilities for more formal brainstorming and for relaxing, again with water points to aid focus, concentration and communication. campus.bulthaup.com

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We spend around 12% of our lives in the kitchen – that’s an average

of 2.8 hours a day

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The Disappearing KitchenFrom Scavolini, the Ki kitchen by Nendo hides clutter within two basic objects: a white container and wooden shelves. (In Japanese, ki means both bowl and wood.) The same containers reappear in the sink and hob units, and even in the specially designed hood, generating a pleasing rhythm of form. Doors, recessed grip profiles, upstands, wall claddings, plinths and worktops come with a single finish, giving a restful and unified look. The simple formula demonstrates a fresh, contemporary approach to concealing kitchen equipment, creat-ing what Nendo’s Oki Sato calls ‘a lot of space, a lot of freedom and something that makes you feel very relaxed in a way’. The same scheme has also been applied to Scavolini’s Ki bathroom.scavolini.com

German architect Ole Scheeren reinterpreted the concept of fast food for high-end grocery chain Dean & DeLuca with the Stage, an expe-riential and rather theatrical food-retail format that debuted at Design Miami and is to be installed in the brand’s shops. Scheeren com-ments on his future-focused object. OLE SCHEEREN: With contemporary city work-ers increasingly restricted by time, there will be more demand for a fast-food format in food retail. However, today’s fast-food franchises all look the same. Besides ordering, there is not much conver-sation between customer and crew, and the food is

not presented nicely. My intention was to elevate the buying of fast food to another level by design-ing an environment where food is displayed like a treasured object and customers are enticed to watch and admire it being assembled and wrapped. The staff become performers, taking centre stage in the design. A kitchen counter made entirely of mirrored stainless steel almost disappears and blends with the surroundings, thus highlighting the food. It is designed to be standardized and industri-ally made so the system can be installed elsewhere efficiently. – KHburo-os.comdeandeluca.com

Theatrical (En)counter

Re-establishing the sink area as the command centre of the kitchen, Grohe’s Essence Professional (pictured) and Concetto dual-spray taps provide complete control, thanks to a flexible silicone hose and a spring arm that swivels 360 degrees. Choose from a rainbow of colours.grohe.com

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➀BLADE RUNNERSAsk any chef what their most important kitchen tool is, and the answer will always be: their knife. So with the increasing professionalization of the domestic kitchen, it’s no surprise that the artisa-nal kitchen knife has become an object of desire. Specialized, hand-forged and certainly not cheap, today’s best knives are both covetable and collectable. Hence the current spate of simple yet stylish single-product stores that look as sharp as the goods they sell.

In a store with an interior by Scott & Scott Architects, Ai & Om Knives in Vancouver, Canada, sells Japanese knives, sharpening stones and cutting boards. It also offers hand-sharpening services, knife-skills classes and sharpening workshops. scottandscott.ca

KITCHEN CURRENTS

At Nihonbashi KIYA, a Tokyo knife store designed by Mandai Architects, handcrafted knives and other kitchen implements are displayed individually, emphasizing their uniqueness. mndi.net

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Gadgets get smarter and bees are back in business: see what’s sparking tomorrow’s kitchens.

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➁ HIVE MINDSThe global plight of bees has triggered an astonishing rise in beekeeping, in both urban and rural areas. Coupled with the growth of other domestic adaptations of food farming and preserving – from raising organic crops to pickling, smoking and brewing – the boom in small-scale honey production has led to a renewed awareness of terroir, the flavour unique to a local product. An increased appreciation of honey’s health benefits accompanies the trend.

Invited to design a wooden beehive by Barcelona-based Publications for Pleasure (for the firm’s book, Bee Project), Octavio Barrera handcrafted a simple pine structure based on traditional models. Leather straps add a contemporary touch. octaviobarrera.com

Bompas & Parr curated The Joy of Bees, an extensive art installation celebrating a selection of the world’s rarest honeys. A four-storey townhouse in London’s Soho housed the event, which was created for international hotel group Relais & Châteaux and featured gastronomic tastings of honeys collected from its properties worldwide.bompasandparr.com

Neri Oxman and MIT’s Mediated Matter group developed the Synthetic Apiary, a new kind of environment for studying the cohabitation of humans and other species. It was inspired by bees and, in particular, their ability to swarm and build collectively.matter.media.mit.edu

Arthur Monnereau’s Apibox 2 beehive is the result of collaboration with a beekeeping-equipment company and a moulded-foam parts producer. Composed of expanded polystyrene boards, the hive is light but weatherproof and includes a system for collecting honey on tap.arthurmonnereau.com

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➂‘We build smart kitchens, says Sebastian Desch, head of design at Team 7. ‘At least we call them smart.’ The k7 is a minimalist kitchen that emphasizes the connections between nature, design and technology: electrical touch-sensitive fittings and a k7 island with a progressively height-adjustable countertop create a synthesis between function and the natural, sensuous feel of solid wood. It also integrates perfectly into the living area.team7.at

When you share your dinner plans with a Siemens iQ700 induction hob, the CookConnect system automatically manages temperature and adjusts the hood as the food cooks. All hob functions can be controlled via smartphone or tablet. By selecting a recipe from the accompanying app, the entire process can be automated.siemens.com

With the Stagg Pour-Over Kettle from Fellow, coff ee and tea lovers can adjust water temperature to suit a particular bean, roast or brewing method. An app developed by Acaia, makers of coff ee-brewing scales, enables kettle, grinder and scale to interconnect and communicate with one another for even greater control of the product’s various functions. fellowproducts.com

SMARTS TO SAVOURTechnology once seemed to pass the kitchen by – but not any more. In the rush to realize the smartest kitchen on the market, manufacturers are pulling out all the R&D stops. Get ready for appliances with wireless connectivity and kitchen aids you can control with your smartphone. Shelves that keep food at the appropriate temperatures and tables that can cook your meal – or tell you what can be made from the ingredients you place on them – are among the many ideas projected for the future.

Growing food is easy when your garden takes care of itself. SproutsIO, based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, is a smart ‘microgarden’ whose all-in-one indoor growing system uses a soil-free combination of hydroponics and aeroponics. It tracks the growth of plants and gives them what they need: light, water and nutrients. All you have to do is eat the results.sprouts.io

The smart kitchen market is expected to grow by 63% per year

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➃ DOMESTIC EVOLUTIONEver since the Dyson showed what can be achieved by taking a new approach to a banal home appliance, designers have been reinventing once dull and predictable product categories like there’s no tomorrow. And with good reason. As well as helping to beautify the kitchen environment, fresh takes on the toaster, bin and kettle can help us save energy, discourage overconsumption and simplify our lives.

MIITO’s innovative electric kettle (basically unchanged since the 1890s) is all about saving rather than wasting energy by adding too much water. MIITO allows you to heat an exact amount of water, in any vessel, to a preselected temperature. It’s a whizz for baby food, too.miito.com

Back to basics: Regular, by Arthur Desmet, is a range of compact appliances that sets out to be as simple and intuitive as possible. Extra features were eliminated in order to reduce each piece to its functional essence.

Teawith, by RCA graduate Keren Hu, is smaller, faster and quieter – not to mention much better looking – than the average kettle. Designed especially for use outside the kitchen, Teawith can boil enough water for two cups, while fitting elegantly into contemporary living spaces.u-d-l.com

RCA graduate Hyerim Shin’s pastel-coloured bin and toaster explore the quality of kawaii, the Japanese concept of cuteness. The toaster wheezes when full of crumbs (and sneezes when emptied), while the bin moves and swivels to signal when it’s full.hyerimshin.com

The global kitchen appliances market is expected to reach over US$250 billion

by 2023ALLIED MARKET RESEARCH

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Fang Liu, courtesy of Teawith Essentials Association

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Furniture FestRetro motifs, weather resistance and smart carpentry stand out at IMM COLOGNE. Words LAUREN GRIECO

A profusion of presentations at IMM Cologne 2017 showed designers’ attempts to create warmer, more inviting furniture through their choice of materials and a glance at the past for inspiration and guidance.imm-cologne.com

HookedFree of superfluous details, Angle is Lucien Gumy’s minimalist hall stand for Karimoku. Hooks for coats or hangers are carved into the sturdy wooden pole, which holds hefty loads without toppling, thanks to the stand’s weighted cruciform base.karimoku-newstandard.jp

Cecilie Manz, one of Danish brand Muuto’s original designers, fused the fine-tuned proportions of seat, back and legs with seamless joinery to make Workshop, a visually light, physically robust chair with a modest aesthetic. Available in pine or oak.muuto.com

Moritz von Schmeling’s Kosi range for Zeitraum minimizes what can be the overly dominant presence of solid-wood furniture. The designer used soft fabrics to produce the desired comfy feel. The collection includes a bench, which rests on a quartet of rounded wooden legs, as well as a side table with storage space and beds with mattresses.zeitraum-moebel.de

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In a BindKettal’s outdoor armchair, Cala, bears a resemblance to its retro relative, the Emanuelle chair. Using rope instead of wicker, design studio Doshi Levien wove a verti-cal lattice around a frame made from coated-aluminium sections to form a tall backrest. Supporting the seat is a choice of teak legs or an aluminium pedestal.kettal.com

Round-Up Austrian manufacturer Wittmann joined forces with Jaime Hayon to form the Wittmann Hayon Workshop. Their Vuelta collection – sofa and armchairs – lives up to its name, as vuelta is Spanish for ‘return’ or ‘rotation’, two words that come to mind when looking at these pieces. Rising from a circular bentwood base with spindle legs, the cushioned arms and backrest – a single unit – of one Vuelta chair snugly embraces the sitter. The design is a tip of the hat to Austrian architect Josef Hoff mann’s early 20th-century furniture.wittmann.at

Knot NaturalA throwback to retro globe pendants, Knot is a collection by ChiaramonteMarin Design for Brokis. A length of natural rope threaded through a transparent sphere of handblown glass – the lamps are in a variety of organic shapes – is secured with a knot where it exits the hollow orb.brokis.cz

Magic MouldingFlorence-based studio E-ggs conceived Leaf, a chair whose moulded plywood seat in beech or oak is detailed with a pair of delicately curled lobes. Leaf’s contoured back and seat are the work of Ton.ton.eu

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Jens Lewe and the KFF design team dial back the clock with Arva, a dining chair, lounge chair and ottoman. The model shown has a spidery four-star base and a swivel seat clad in ‘quilted’ padded leather. The lounge chair has armrests for extra comfort. kff .de

Colour BlockingDauphin Home’s Bosse Modul Space features rational geometries in the saturated hues championed by modernist architect Le Corbusier. Orthogonal frames in chrome tubing hold shelves or drawers in any combination of the 63 shades that make up the Swiss master’s Les Couleurs Suisse. dauphin-group.delescouleurs.ch

In LineSebastian Herkner’s interior-design skills returned to IMM in 2017. The German designer came up with a harmonious and tasteful environment for Nya Nordiska’s Streifzüge (‘stripe exploration’) collection. The gently wav-ing striations and patterns of the textiles on display were the basis for Herkner’s welcoming oasis.nya.com

A background in marine equipment explains Sunbrella’s commitment to making highly durable, colourfast, fade- and weather-resistant outdoor fabrics. Colourfast textiles are achieved by combining pigments and fibres at an early stage of manufacture. Sunbrella fabrics – most of which are solution-dyed acrylic – emerge from this process highly resistant to the impact of external factors, including intense sunlight.sunbrella.com

For Das Haus - Interiors on Stage, an annual installation at IMM Cologne, American designer Todd Bracher challenged the traditional notion of Western living. Architecture, interiors and design became a single experience in Das Haus, attending to the intersecting living and life needs of residents. Free from a predetermined function, the main room was open to the interpretation of its

users, but Bracher stresses the importance of separation as well. His resting room, for instance, was not just for sleeping. The space was meant for daydreaming, meditation, napping and all things relevant to processing the day. ‘Furniture is critical in supporting these types of activities,’ says Bracher, ‘and the right posture can help you relax or focus.’toddbracher.com

Step Up to the PlateAptly titled Mix & Match, multifunctional serving trays by ceramics artist Flavia del Pra for Gan (Gandia Blasco’s indoor brand) can be combined to create playful compositions. The designs have cop-perplated aluminium bases and handmade ceramic tops in a range of colourful graphic patterns. Del Pra says the nine models can be ‘used as platters, as side tables for serving and presenting food, and as ped-estals for drawing attention to an art work or an exquisite plant’.gan-rugs.comgandiablasco.com

Light BeamThe minimal-slash-industrial works of American artist Donald Judd guided Andreas Bozarth Fornell – known for his Acne Studios interiors – as he conceived Fornell, a streamlined hang-ing lamp for &Tradition. Suspended from two wires, a section of polished stainless steel – shaped like a flat-topped tent and equipped with an LED lamp – sends a soft beam of light to the surface below.andtradition.com

Constantin M

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